Facing Fears
by DBack47
Summary: Maddie has always associated ghosts with one thing; pure Terror, and for good reason. She must now face ghosts on a much more personal scale, say, her own son? Is facing fears a matter of willpower or just candid perspective on what is true and what is not?
1. Chapter 1

_Amity Park was haunted. Nobody doubted it, although there was skepticism concerning the myths that surrounded the town. However, Madeline Walker was the person to believe every single one; she knew the danger of being off guard. _

_She was just seven, new to the town, and cynical about the charms people hung on their porches to ward off the so called "ghosts". Outside of Amity Park, it was a running joke that the entire city was nothing more than America's largest Sanatorium, and even at that early age, she would rather believe that than the paranoid looks that her neighbors made at the house their family had moved into, dismissing with a laugh their ominous warnings that the house had not been sold since the last resident, who had gone missing years ago under mysterious circumstances. _

_It was a beautiful wooden house modeled as a miniature French Chateau with yellow shingles on the sides with a round tower on one corner, a rickety porch wrapping around the rest of the cheerful structure. Madeline was so taken by the attic bedroom and the ancient nursery and had declared the house a "bestest house ever" in the most enthused voice she could manage in her high pitched voice. _

_At night however, there was something terribly wrong. The shadows were too long and the lights always too dim. The creaking was too loud and the closets too quiet. Her parents didn't seem to mind, but she did. A nightlight became a necessity in the attic and she refused to have her closet door open. _

_Outside in the town, rumors were a permanent trickle of stories about ghosts. One person was punched mysteriously down the stairs. Another person had been accompanied by endless nightmares. Another person had seen some sort of creature in the woods, but these tales were no more credible than the rumors that passed around during the election of 72' between Richard Nixon and George McGovern, and Madeline's dad was a scientist anyway, apolitical and the essence of a man of logic. The rumors, both ghostly and not, were inconsequential, or so it seemed. _

_It was strange that on that certain fateful evening, on that warm summer night in June, the Watergate scandal was being reported on television, verifying that the rumors of politics were true. Another truth was about to be revealed to the Walker family. _

"_Maaaadeeline…" _

"_Who's there?" Madeline said in a fearful voice as she tugged the covers closer to her head. _

_The room was darker than usual, the pale yellow light of the nightlight doing nothing to penetrate the gloom of the small bedroom, the angular ceiling seeming to be alive with shadows. However, there seemed to be no more sound, no silent, echoing whisper. _

_Just a dream _

"_Or so you think dear" _

_Madeline hissed and squeaked, but found her voice suddenly dampened by a sudden cold which gripped her severely, chilling through the flesh down to the bone. _

_The nightlight flickered with an audible quaver of electricity. Dread entered her like a creeping slither up her spine as she watched the yellowish light dim, and then extinguish, leaving only the pale light of a full moon gleam through the small window. _

_Don't hurt me _

"_Huuuush" _

_Her blue eyes darted over to a shadow on the floor, her eyes bulging as the shadow moved, forming the shape of a shifting mass that seemed to be approaching, holding some sort of staff. _

"_You are afraid" _

_There was a banging sound 2 floors below her, something in the basement, something metal being shaken violently. The comforting muffled sound of the television suddenly turned to muffled static. "Mmmmom!" Madeline cried out, but her voice clenched and her throat seemed to constrict, something applying pressure to trachea. _

_The house creaked unnaturally, a quiver running through the entire house. _

_I am going to die _

"_Nooo" _

_She was crying by now, a pent up whine breaking out from her clenched voice and tears running down her cheeks. Something broke in the house with a clear clang. She heard somebody run down the stairs outside her closed door frantically, every step on that grand wooden stair case giving a moan as the heavy weight passed over them. It was her Dad. _

_Two eyes stared at her from the darkness, crimson and glowing, angular and fierce, without pupils and uniform in shade. So malevolent did the supernatural gaze feel that Madeline's stomach twisted and her heart skipped a beat, resuming its pace even faster. She felt sick. _

_There was some sort of yelling going on below, more heavy footsteps. _

"_Noooo deeeath, but cursed Life Madeine Feeenton. You are veeery special" _

_The eyes came closer, narrowing. _

"_Beee careful" It laughed. _

_It was the most hideous laugh she had ever heard, so insane, so unearthly. She never forgot the sound of it; incomparable to anything she had had ever heard. The eyes vanished. A putrid smell filled the room; the smell of natural gas. _

_The window opened on its own accord, screeching on its track and letting in a warm breeze. _

_The door seemed to burst open. Her sister, 10 year old Alicia stood there, a hysteric look on her face. _

"_Maddie!" she cried out, running in. Madeline felt suddenly released, the clenching of the throat passing away and her muscles unlocking. She screamed, fighting off the arms of Alicia with all her might, kicking and punching wildly in her absolute lack of control. _

"_Stop it you! Let's go, let's go!" Alicia fought through her sister's sobs and fists, grabbing her and dragging her out of bed, towards the window. _

_Outside was the old fire escape. Alicia pushed Madeline through the window first and clambered out herself. _

_Madeline didn't remember being dragged down the fire escape, nor the efforts of her sister. All that she remembered after that, indeed, anyone remembered, was seeing the house explode from within, the windows blasting outwards in a glittering shower of glass and flames. _

_Call it an accident, some sort of horrible mistake, but that explosion had not been an explosion of mere chance. _

….

"Mom, what's wrong?" he asked in a voice that hinted at his unease.

She couldn't respond. How do you tell a person that you know so well, for so long, from the beginning to the end, that he's dead? Maddie said nothing, but only stared blankly at him, or it; whatever _it _could be defined as, and tried to comprehend what had just happened.

Ghosts had been such an integral, sometimes eerily fateful part of her life. For most people, even in Amity Park, they were either a myth or a mildly threatening superstition, but from the time her parents had been killed in that bizarre haunting followed by a suspicious gas explosion _she was confident that was ghost caused that too_, Maddie had been in some way or another involved with the supernatural, and, perhaps in error, had embraced it.

She had gone too far this time.

His eyebrows were shooting up in a growing horror as she stared back at him, head slight bowed, her own gaze almost askance, her stomach a horrible pit, a terror growing in her heart.

He turned towards the mirror, and screamed.

It was understandable why. Maddie had seen many scary things before, spectral phenomena especially, so her reaction was more one of grim appall, but for Danny, who was relatively untouched by the frights she had experienced and almost never seen a ghost before, had reacted accordingly.

What he, _or at least his imprint had seen, _was a partially transparent, almost sheet white mocking mimicry of her son, eyes a glowing green so unusual and bright that they reminded her of the way cat eyes reflect in the dark, except intensified; hair a gleaming white in complete antithesis of the natural shade of charcoal black, and a sort of deathly stillness in every movement that was only characteristic of the dead.

The apparition was wrong in every horrifying way, mocking what life had been a mere few minutes ago with this sort of bad negative hologram. It was scary, in a way that words failed to convey, and more importantly, it was those faint chills, that crawl underneath the skin that was a sign of something that was so juxtaposed to what the essence of life was that its mere presence was wrong. However, the scream, which sounded to high heaven and was far higher pitched than was even earthly, was what broke Maddie into a panic and brought her to her knees.

Danny's ghost glowed a brief but intense bout of neon green before it vanished as it swung around, emitting that terrible wail, mouth opened agape to unleash the awful sound, The lights exploded and plunged the basement into darkness and everything glass, including the small basement windows, covered in insulating clear plastic to keep in the heat, shattered in a further extension of an assault upon the ears.

_It's the end of me_

Maddie's thoughts turned to despair as she herself let out a human scream and collapsed into a ball, backing up into a corner. She was thoroughly frightened, no matter how mature or how inured she was to such sights, because this was her son, apparently dead, now a ghost, turning to the malevolence that she knew all ghosts naturally did. More importantly, it was that strange ring that she had constructed in a dusty corner with the cursed artifact that had caused it, cause her own son's untimely death in so violent and unfortunate a manner.

The sounds, which rattled the wooden beams above her head and seemed to echo through the small basement, the supersonic vibrations bouncing from the rough concrete walls till they dissipated, fell off slowly, leaving her only to whimper, the tears already beginning to flow

_What have I done? _

_What punishment am I fit to endure now for my mistake? _

"Mmmooom?" the word was spoken once again in that unusual rasp of the dead that she was familiar with, but the fear it inspired in her was due to the fear that was in the voice, the voice of Danny, which she had trained herself from an early age.

She could only clench her throat and listen.

There was some sort of flash, she could detect it though her eyes were closed. It was warm, bright, and different than quite anything she had been expecting. What happened next was the last thing she expected at all.

Someone put a hand on her shoulder, tentatively, as though there she was made of glass. Maddie opened her eyes and saw, just in front of her, the dark shape of Danny, sitting in a heap with a hand stretched out towards her. She grabbed it, made sure it was real, and then let out a pent up gasp.

"Thank goodness!" she pulled Danny in and held him tight, the both of them heaving breathes from the intensity of the brief but strange occurrence.

_And thus it started…mother and son, working in tangent, to draw closer to each other and the strange truths behind their existences and the strange events in both of their lives and how they coincided and sometimes even were simultaneous. _

_Mother and Son, Father and Daughter, family and friends, the story of Danny Phantom started and continued on…_


	2. Chapter 2

_It's funny how a room full of people can be so lonely. Standing in a silent crowd, cut off from the person next to you by a wall of unfamiliarity and atmosphere, you sometimes stand utterly alone when surrounded by people, peering over a cliff of emptiness. _

_There were thousands of students in the auditorium, compacted into banks of seats too small for them, watching idly as the Principle strode back and forth across the long stage with a microphone, booming in a conceited voice._

_Madeline just sat transfixed, eyes trained on the podium, empty save the ghost that stood there, ignored by all except her. She blinked and looked away, but it didn't do anything to stop the ghost from staring, eyes as black as sink holes, rotting hair falling off an exposed skull of a head. _

_There was talking; students whispering and snickering, cracking jokes at the Principles bald head and making impressions of his voice. However, it seemed all so terrible to Madeline as she sat, trying to ignore that horrible spectral corpse that stood wavering behind the podium. _

_Its just my imagination, its not real _

_But I am…_

_Maddie shivered at the voice which spoke directly to her, closing her eyes tight and wincing. This was nothing an 8__th__ grader should have to endure; seeing something that nobody else could. Talking about it only made her look weird, and thus she was alone, no parents, just Alicia, and she was in high school anyway. Margret the Social caretaker who was their surrogate mother didn't even regard Maddie as sane. _

_It was too dark in the auditorium, too many shadows and contrasting bright lights. It was too hot, too tense, too superficial and crude. The crowd was chattering, the principle continued to read off the school's motto and rules as the new school year began, and there was nothing unusual to anyone else. They were all so blind, so unaware of the danger that was up on that wooden stage, behind that old battered podium, staring with those empty eyes, that agape mouth with bare teeth that were in a perpetual grin of malevolence. _

_She could handle this. This wasn't unusual for her; she saw things like this all the time…right? _

_Wrong, she only saw these things alone, never in so public a place. And when the ghost, like some sort of mist, began to float forwards and move ever so slowly towards her on the mezzanine, Madeline whimpered and clenched the arm rests of her seat. _

"_Something wrong Maddie?" her best friend said, tugging on her arm. "Got the spooks again?" _

_Madeline nodded slowly. Her close friend was the only one that she held in confidence, the only one that would place stock in her personal daymares, and Candice Foley was the only one that she could trust to support her in these instances. _

"_Where is it Maddie?" the girl leaned forward, eyes sweeping the stage for evidence of the ghostly manifestation. "Where?"_

"_Right there, getting closer, floating" Madeline said. "don't look at the eyes" her heart was beginning to race and the room seemed to get cold. Sounds seemed to drown themselves out as the ghost came closer and closer. She could see it up close now, it used to be a man old business suit complete with a bow tie and old glasses, but now he was a skull with shattered glasses and skeleton hands that were reaching out to her. _

"_I don't see it"_

"_You never do, he's going to hurt me" Madeline said between her breaths that were reaching a state of hyperventilation. _

"_What should I do?"_

"_Just stay still and try not to catch his attention"_

"_What about you?"_

_But Madeline's only answer was to look up and widen her eyes as the ghost floated up to her eyelevel. _

"_Maddie!"_

_Madeline was shoved into her seat, knuckles turning a steady white as she gripped and tensed, stopped her breathing and wondered what was the world coming too. The Principle was nearing the end. Her classmates were clapping unenthusiastically. _

"_Maddie!" Candice reached over and shook Madeline's arm more violently. _

_The Ghost stood above her now, staring intently at her, towering over her petite form. _

_**I won't hurt you beyond what you can endure**_

"_Maddie!" Candice screamed this time as Madeline slumped over in her chair and fell onto the floor, eyes still wide open and face as still as a mask, her pig tails splayed out across the dirty carpet. Eyes turned, voices rose in tempo, the Principle stopped his monologue. _

"_Something wrong in the balcony?!" The Principle said sternly. _

"_Maddie!" Candice was growing hysteric as she turned Madeline over and tried shaking her awake. Nothing, Madeline was still stone faced and still, limp and motionless. Students in the rows behind them stood up to get a glimpse. A boy in the seat next to them said something concerned, starting to rise from his seat. _

"_Stop that ruckus!" the Principle yelled. _

"_Maddie!" _

…_.._

She woke up in a fright, silent and frantic, grabbing the air and clawing at the invisible attacker. But a moment passed and she knew that she was alone, alone in the bedroom, without anyone to tell her that her nightmare was nothing more than a terrible vision from an obscure past.

Sometimes they were real, sometimes they weren't. Sometimes they were bizarre, and other times they were vivid beyond what she wanted to endure. And they always seemed to involve…

Ghosts.

Her heart was racing and her breaths labored, but she calmed down, sitting up and staring at the window, illuminated by the dim orange light of a sodium vapor street lamp that flickered occasionally outside. Although it was silent and her eyelids heavy with sleep, she failed to return, mind too troubled to settle down.

Life carried on in Amity Park without pause, but there was always that strange look that residents cast over their shoulders, as if something was watching them. Reports of possessions, hauntings and strange phenomenon were commonplace in the tired old town, and even more common were the rumors that raced through the city streets, about malevolent ghosts and spirits. Sociologists had deemed the town as "conservatively minded and superstitious" with tendancies towards "mass hysteria concerning perfectly explainable events and accidents". Perhaps it was true, perhaps it wasn't, but Maddie chose the center path of balance between skepticism and wry belief in the myth that Amity Park had some sort of curse on it.

And yet she was a scientist in the field?

Or at least was, had been, before life had gave a sigh of fatigue and sank upon her, taking away some of the things that she counted as important; her job and husband. However, she had to count her blessings, at least she had a few things left of the old days to remind her of better times. She shook her head and cleared her mind.

_Can't sleep, nor do I think I want to. Maybe I'll just check on Danny. _

She got up and wandered out into the hallway, sliding down the rug as quietly as she could, searching for the comforting noise of Danny's snoring. She pushed open his bedroom door carefully and came over to gently run a hand through his hair.

_Poor kid. My fault, the fact that he had to go through a divorce and all. I suppose it was for the better, Jack was just too…wild, although I wonder what kind of a Dad he would have been. Probably fun, but negligent. He always was. _Maddie paused, struck by the thought

_Oh who am I kidding? We both knew that we were too incompatible and equally at fault. I was too cloying I suppose, he was too apathetic. Doesn't matter now, that was 6 years ago, before Danny could understand._

"Mom? What are you doing?"

Maddie looked over, startled to see Danny groggily rubbing his eyes and yawning. "What time is it?"

"Sometime past three in the morning I think. I just had a nightmare, couldn't sleep" Maddie herself yawned as she smiled and caressed Danny's cheek. "But don't worry and get some rest, you have school tomorrow"

"Not a baby Mom" Danny growled. "And I always have school tomorrow except on Friday and football nights on Saturday"

"Sorry, I know you don't like this"

The situation suddenly grew awkward and Maddie knew it. Something was suddenly very alien about Danny's room, very strange and unfamiliar. She understood that she tended to be overprotective, and that it was inevitable that Danny was growing up and rapidly adapting a new lifestyle and personality that was far out of her control. She feared that day when he would decide to burn the bridges that kept them as family, and wished wistfully that time would just sometimes freeze and place a hold on the changes that swept through her life; for the good times to stay good and the bad times to stay locked away. But she had been wishing that for a long time and that had never happened, and life progressed, she aged, so did her children, both of them. Jasmine was already long gone, leaving Danny to be a final link to Maddie's younger days.

There was one sound that haunted her more than any other, the sound of the clock in the hallways, ticking, without halt or rest, precious seconds slipping by. Danny struggled to find tactful words as Maddie mulled on her broodings.

"It's just…weird. I'm 14 now Mom, I don't need you treating me like a newborn" Danny closed his eyes and turned away from her. Maddie was slightly crestfallen, but nodded and sighed.

"We all change, I should know that most of all. It just seems like yesterday that I brought you to presch…"

"Mooooom" Danny moaned, Maddie grinned.

"I know I know, embarrassing memory, but a fond one for me. Oh please Danny, let me revel in a bit of sentimental nostalgia."

She paused. "How's being a freshmen?"

"This late? Really? Well anyway, fine. I guess it's okay, I mean, it's kinda nice being treated as though you're supposed to be at a certain level of responsibility, makes you feel respected, if you know what I mean. Lot of more kids than Middle School, a lot of girls…its nice."

Maddie couldn't help but laugh. "You truly are growing up. Any keepers?"

"One. Tall, pale, outcast amidst the girls and a rebel like none other, but its really very…" Danny struggled for words

"Attractive?" Maddie suggested

"Charming" Danny said uncomfortably. "She's Sam, Sam Manson I think. Dresses like a Goth, makeup and purple lipstick to boot but I think…I might ask her out to the homecoming dance"

"Oh will you?" Maddie asked, delighted. "I trust that you've made a good appraisal. I always say that the outcasts are the girls that are the most interesting"

"I don't know" Danny said unsurely. "I might get laughed at by Tucker for it"

"Oh Tucker laughs at anything" Maddie said with a hint of humor in her voice. "Just like his mother. Her and I were inseparable in Highschool, like you and Tucker are. You should have seen Candice back in the day, running that school like it was her…"

"Mom, it's 3 in the morning!"

"Sorry" Maddie said as she got up and moved towards the door. "Just don't mind the old lady stepping off stage"

"MOM!"

"Leaving, leaving" Maddie chortled as she closed the door behind her, but she stopped and quickly looked back into the darkness, a frown crossing her face. "By the way, what I really wanted to ask is how you're feeling"

Danny was silent for a moment, but then spoke carefully. "I feel…cold, but not a bad sort of cold, just sort of chilled...its really hard to explain, but nothing else seems _wrong _per say. There's something different, I think, but nothing that I want to find out about right now" Danny yawned again. "Good night Mom"

"Night Danny" Maddie shut the door softly, troubled.

She wandered back through the hallway into the kitchen. They lived simply and nothing more, making it from day to day, seeking the opportunity to improve what they had. _They…_maybe it was just her. Danny was fast becoming more independent of her mothering, forging ahead into a new world that was leaving her behind. What did she have then? This little old house with its peeling wallpaper and old linoleum floors? That job as a receptionist at the hospital? Seemed like a degree in psychology and spectral studies just didn't attract many job offers during an economic downturn.

She sat down at the table, brooding. No lights were on, just the dim street lamps shining through the windows; dark and gloomy. In the shadows, she could cloak herself and hide away, free from prying eyes and condescending judgments, but it was in the shadows that her fears came out. In solitude, in the quiet, they lurked like prowling wolves, preying on her security and peace of mind. Fears of age, of aloneness, of financial ruin, and of ghosts that dogged her from night to night, week to week, year to year.

About to return to her bed, she noticed a dark shape moving across the front lawn through the wide living room window, moving swiftly and assertively.

Her heart sank. A burglar? What to do? Call the police? Fight back? Try to reason?

The dark shape vanished behind the leaves of the front bushes. Heavy footsteps traversed the front walk across the uneven concrete.

Her mind was going blank as a silent and creeping terror took over, hands shaking as she stood up slowly and as silently as she could be. _What should I do? Where is this guy coming in? _

The frosted glass on the side door grew dark as a shadow fell upon it. Feet shuffled on the front steps and something grasped the door handle.

Maddie didn't consider the repercussions as she grabbed a broom and lifted it behind her shoulder, eyes focusing on the door and calculating the swing of her makeshift weapon. Tremors were running through her spine and out to her hands, with a sudden luridness gripping her and sharpened her senses and dulled her logical reasoning.

The door opened with force.

She swung and felt the end of the broom be caught with a surprised yelp.

Her mouth opened to cry out, but a hand cupped it and stifled the shout.

Realization fluttered through her mind as she batted the hand away, reaching for the lights. He squinted as they came on, dropping the broom.

"Jack! What the hell are you doing here!" she blurted out, shaken and suddenly furious.


End file.
